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OLD
HAMPSTEAD VILLAGE This is a great walk...they just don't come any better than this. Our setting is London's most picturesque neighbourhood...a perfectly preserved Georgian village crowning the top of a handsome hill and garnished with the capital's most elegant old world promenade, a medley of cobble-stone lanes, pretty cottages, surprising turnings, and unsurpassed views. As for our cast of characters...well it's every bit as beguiling as our setting, ranging from the highwayman Dick Turpin to the painter Constable to the poet Keats; from Freud and D.H. Lawrence to Sting and Boy George; from Elizabeth Taylor and Emma Thompson to Rex Harrison, Peter O'Toole and Jeremy Irons. And for good measure, there's London's most villagey atmosphere and magnificent Hampstead Heath, the capital's best-loved park. This walk takes place every Wednesday at 2:00pm and every Sunday at 10:00am. And it also takes place on Staurday nights at 7:00pm as a pub walk. The Saturday night Old Hampstead Village Pub Walk is guided by Emily. Return to top
THE
LONDON WALK Whoa! Here it is. The all-in-one London Walk. It's the Grand Tour. The London equivalent of the Yellow Brick road. So it's hey ho and off we go - off to see all the classic sights in Westminster and the West End. Tick 'em off: the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, St. James's Palace, the quintessential Royal Park, classy St. James's, Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square, Trafalgar Square, Covent Garden, you name it. They're all here - all the London pearls. And here's the clincher - Helena and Tom have strung them together with quaint little back streets and passageways that give you the real essence of London. This walk takes place every Sunday at 10:15am. N.B. This walk will not take place on December 26 Return to top
"London is far more difficult to see properly than any other place. London is a riddle. Paris is an explanation." G.K. Chesterton, All Things Considered, 1908
WHERE
THE OTHER HALF LIVES Banish care for a couple of hours and saunter into the London "where it never rains, nor clouds, where it's blue summer from Christmas to Christmas, and the streets glitter, and it's always morning and the air sweet and full of bells". This is the London of salons and Dukes and Duchesses and Noel Coward and Mozart (and, indeed, Baroness Margaret Thatcher). The London where the feet of the servants are soft on the carpet and the world's wind scarcely stirs the leaves of The Times and the walls are thick as a century and the gossip is 24-carat and HRH is a neighbour. It makes for a Sunday morning walk that's about as good a tonic as this town has to offer. And afterwards, if you want, there's brunch at Harvey Nichols. N.B. This walk will not take place on December 26 Return to top
THE
FAMOUS SQUARE MILE - 2,000 Years of History This is the great classic London Walk. It explores the very heart of the City - the most historic part of the capital. Threading their way through an intricate network of narrow alleys and cobble-stone lanes, Graham or June chronicle the 2,000 years of London's rich and tumultuous history. And illustrate it by drawing upon everything from street names to ancient customs to the frozen music of London's great buildings, among which are the ruins of the Roman Temple of Mithras, the Bank of England, the Lord Mayor's Mansion House, and ancient Guildhall. (The walk includes, whenever possible, a visit inside Guildhall!) This walk takes place every Thursday at 11:00am and every Sunday at 10:30am. Return to top
FROM
THE REPERTORY
*Ends with a tour of the special Oscar Wilde Centenary Exhibition at the British Library. N.B., this is a completely different tour from Saturday's The London of Oscar Wilde walk. Return to top
THE
BEATLES MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR Guided by "the pied piper of Beatlemania", this is a chance to Imagine Beatlemania and the Swinging 60s. It's a Magical Mystery Tour of the Beatles' London haunts: their Apple offices, where they played the famous rooftop session Paul McCartney's headquarters; and the world famous Abbey Road Studios and the Abbey Road crosswalk. Richard P., recaptures the era when London was the cultural capital of the world and the "Fab Four" were its rulers. This walk takes
place every Wednesday at 2:00pm N.B. We make a short tube journey to Abbey Road, so getting a Two Zone Travel Card is a good idea. Return to top
HISTORIC
GREENWICH - "Versailles with a riverfront" We begin with an overture: the best boat ride in London. The Tower, Tower Bridge, Docklands, and then, three miles downstream, the Thames bursts into one of the sublime sights of English architecture: "the most stately procession of buildings in England." Moments later, another frisson: the mast and spars, the web of rigging of the Cutty Sark, the hauntingly beautiful old tea clipper. As the poet said, "they mark our passage as a race of men; earth will not see such ships again." Welcome to Greenwich! Maritime Greenwich. Royal Greenwich. Greenwich the home of time and centre of space. The Greenwich of crooked lanes, bric-a-brac shops, and bustling antique and flea markets. Greenwich the "green village." Greenwich of the Queen's House, Old Royal Observatory, Gypsy Moth, Royal Naval College, the world's largest nautical museum, the Millennium Dome, and the Cutty Sark itself! Richard or Gillian or Nick or Chris or Hilary will turn the pages of its history for you. This walk takes place every Tuesday, every Thursday and every Sunday at 11:00am. N.B. The boat trip costs £4 (a good discount); Richard, Gillian, Chris, Nick or Hilary go with you on the boat. Return to top
ANCIENT
LONDON - Knights, Nuns & Notoriety This is a jolt of the pure stuff...the best sort of London Walks alchemy. The alchemy that results when you mix alleyways that tourists never find with London history that would do the Sorcerer's Apprentice proud. Here we're in an urban enchanted forest, a place where 13 knights performed three deeds of bravery - one above ground, one below ground, and one in the water. A place where there's a centuries-old peep hole - still there - to keep nuns safe from prying eyes. A place of a Maypole and 11,000 beheaded virgins and the most spectacular statue in London and a show-stopping garden with a fountain whose waters mimic the tail feathers of an ostrich. Let alone Bedlam, an outrageous prioress, Bluebell Girls, black magic, Geoffrey Chaucer and traitors' heads. Return to top
"'London!'
It has the sound of distant thunder."
THE
LONDON WALK - the Tower to St. Paul's London is, as they say, an egg with a double yolk. One of those yolks is Westminster. The other is the old City of London. This - needless to say - is the City of London Grand Tour. It's a primer. One to get you started. It'll give you an overview...from the Tower of London to St. Paul's Cathedral. You can't do better than that for a jumping off point and a final destination. And what comes in between is just as dramatic: twisty little alleyways and nooks and crannies and a secret stretch of shoreline that'll give you a thrilling view across the river to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. Seeing this London is like hearing music you never would have known to listen for. Return to top
"Was für
Plunder!"
LITTLE
VENICE If you fancy something completely different, this is the walk for you. Little Venice is the prettiest and most romantic spot in town. A unique combination of white stucco, greenery, and water, it boasts the finest early Victorian domestic architecture in London; a Who's Who of famous residents (Robert Browning, Edward Fox, Joan Collins, Annie Lennox, and Sigmund Freud to name but a few); and a jewel of a "village" street. And that's not to mention its canals. One of them - Regent's Canal - is known as the "loveliest inland waterway in England". Part of the walk is along the canal towpath - which to this day is studded with fragments of evidence that bring the Age of Canals to life. Afterwards you can take tea at a stylish canal-side café. This walk takes place every Wednesday at 11:00am and every Saturday and Sunday at 2:00pm. Return to top
THE
SUNDAY AFTERNOON GALLERY WALK
Lightning strikes! Which is what happens when you look at a great painting with a great guide. What more is there to say? Guided by Molly or Tom or Margaret or Caroline or Helena or Brian. N.B., admission to The Courtauld is £3 (a handsome reduction); the other galleries are free. Return to top
SHAKESPEARE'S
& DICKENS'S LONDON London was to Shakespeare and Dickens what Paris was to Balzac. It held them in its thrall, was both their canvas and their inspiration, their workshop and their raw material. They in turn made it their own, imaginatively colonising it. And, like "special correspondents for posterity", bequeathed it to us. Today, despite the ravages of time, riot, bombing, and especially fire, traces of their London - shipwrecks from the past - still abound in the City. Everything from superb half-timbered Elizabethan dwellings to the magnificent early 16th-century gatehouse where Shakespeare went with his plays to the offices of the Elizabethan Master of the Revels. And from London's grandest Tudor manor house to crooked little alleys which fed the fires of Dickens's "hallucinating genius". This walk takes
place every Wednesday at 11:00am and every Sunday at 2:00pm. N.B.This walk does not duplicate Monday's and Saturday's "Shakespeare's London" walk. Return to top
THE
UNKNOWN EAST END Showtime! The East End is street markets, boxing and old style gangsters. It's Darkest Victorian London, Jack the Ripper, gin palaces and the Elephant Man freak shows. It's 18th-century coaching inns, Dick Turpin and bare knuckle fighters. It's both Fort Vallance - home of the infamous Kray twins - and the beginnings of the Salvation Army. It's a place where a Bishop shoed the devil, a Duke lost his head and became a mummy and a hanged man rode to London in a dung cart; it's where a man cut off the head of a king and stole an orange from him; it's the "monkey" parade, Russian revolutionaries and the unemployed tailors' presser who shot three London policemen to become a national hero. If you want the colourful and the bizarre, the strange and the unusual, this is it. Return to top
"MORE FROM THE REPERTORY" 2:30 pm The walk in this time slot changes weekly. For details see the following list.
*These walks are given in partnership with the Inland Waterways Association. **Guided by a Dealer at the Foreign Exchange! ***Includes free admission to the Museum of London's splendid Roman Galleries where we'll walk along a Roman street. ****A 5-Zone Travel Card will cover your fares to and from Harrow on the Hill. OLD
WESTMINSTER - 1,000 Years of History This is the cornerstone, the seminal London Walk. Miss it and you've missed London. For Old Westminster is London at its grandest: the place where kings and queens are crowned, where they lived, and often were buried. It's the forge of the national destiny, the place where the heart of the Empire beat, the Mecca of politicians throughout the ages. The past here is cast in stone and we take it all in: ancient Westminster Hall, the Houses of Parliament, the Jewel Tower, and Westminster Abbey. And to see it with a great guide is to have that past suddenly rise to the surface...like seeing a photographic print come up in a darkroom. It doesn't get any better than this. And embarras de richesse, we'll also explore the private face of Westminster - the London equivalent of Georgetown! Unlike the tourist hordes, we'll get to see the hidden and ever so picturesque Georgian back streets where all the political salons are! We end at the Cabinet War Rooms, the fortified bunker that housed Winston Churchill's centre of operations during the war. You'll get an extremely handsome discount on the price of admission if you want to visit the War Rooms. This walk takes
place every Tuesday and Thursday at 2:00pm; Return to top
"London
is like Washington, New York and Los Angeles rolled into one….In a
comfortable day's walk, you can circumnavigate an area of central
London where virtually every important decision about the well being
of the nation is made."
THE
OLD CHELSEA VILLAGE PUB WALK The Village of Palaces is London at its most beguiling. It's Oscar Wilde's Tower of Ivory and Mick Jagger's town-house. It's James Bond's pad, Paul Getty's stately mansion, Christopher Wren's Royal Hospital, and an ancient Physic Garden that changed the course of American History. It's trendy Sloane Rangers, Hooray Henries, and scarlet-coated Chelsea Pensioners. It's cannons from the Battle of Waterloo and Chinese lanterns from the Flower Show. We take it all in, punctuated with visits to three delightful pubs, including a centuries-old riverside inn, a pub that's utterly surprising, and my (David's) favourite pub in all of England - it's the most traditional hostelry in London. (Food is available.)
THE
OLD SOHO PUB WALK - "brilliant and wicked" Colourful and cosmopolitan Soho is the free port that every city must have. It's London's hottest - and coolest - social melting pot. It's a place of bewitching contrasts. Homely village and red-light district; workplace and playground; Chinatown and Theatreland; a paradise for gourmands and the haunt of artists, con-artists, artistes and artisans. Today it's a by-word for style; in the 60s it was the cradle of British pop music; a century ago it was the worst slum in town; earlier still, the hub of aristocratic life. There's no place like it. (Food is available.) Return to top
HAUNTED
LONDON It's blue dusk. Feeding time. Time to pierce the veil which hides the future after death. The time when rooftop cats look down - their eyes green as ringstones - and see things that maybe we shouldn't see. Down here in the creepiest part of London...in alleyways so narrow you can't open an umbrella in them. And so old they're cobwebbed with time. And cobwebbed with something else too. Cobwebbed with events that occurred long ago - events that under certain conditions can again "become dynamic". So when you see the unholy Trinity - and you will see it - and when silver dragons leer at you - and they will - and if you hear footsteps up a deserted alleyway - or voices of persuasion that whisper in the darkness - or catch a glimpse of a hooded, staring transparent figure - congratulations - you've just fed a haunting. It'll be back. And one day...so will you. Now who's for a really cozy pub? This walk takes place every Friday and every Sunday at 7:30pm. N.B. This walk will not take place on December 24 Return to top
JACK
THE RIPPER HAUNTS Please tread carefully
and keep away from the shadows - you are about to enter the abyss... He came silently out of the midnight shadows of August 31, 1888. Striking terror at the hearts - and throats - of raddled, drink-sodden East End prostitutes. Leaving a trail of blood that led...nowhere. Jack the Ripper! We evoke that autumn of gaslight and fog, of menacing shadows and stealthy footsteps as we inspect the murder sites, sift through the evidence - in all its gory detail - and get to grips, so to speak, with the main suspects. Enroute we'll steady our nerves in "The Ten Bells", the pub where the victims - perhaps under the steely gaze of the Ripper himself - tried to forget the waking nightmare. This walk takes place every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at 7:30pm. This walk will not take place on December 24 or 25. N.B., Let's call a spade a spade. Going on Donald Rumbelow's walk is as close as you're going to get to nailing the Ripper. Donald is the author of the best-selling The Complete Jack the Ripper, the definitive book on the subject. In the words of The Jack to Ripper A to Z (the bible of Ripperology studies): "Donald Rumbelow is internationally recognised as the leading authority on the subject". The former Curator of the City of London Police Crime Museum and a two-time Chairman of the Crime Writers' Association, Donald is Britain's most distinguished crime historian. And I hasten add, he's not some dry-as-dust academic. He spent 25 years on the City of London Police Force - which in effect means you'll be taken over some of the most famous crime scenes in the world by a law enforcement professional. Oh and I almost forgot - he's also a professionally qualified Blue Badge Guide! But a word of warning: never part with your money or set off with anyone until you're absolutely certain you're with Donald or - if it's another night - one of his London Walks colleagues. Donald (and co.) will be holding up copies of the distinctive white London Walks leaflet. And remember, Donald and his colleagues never ever start the Jack the Ripper walk before 7:30pm. In short, don't let anyone mislead you. |
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